The June 2012 report to Congress focuses on the role of Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) as purchasers of care, and on the link between ensuring access to care for beneficiaries and value-based purchasing of health services from providers and plans.
Understanding whether access to necessary care needs to be improved–by how much, for which populations, for what services, in which delivery arrangements and under what payment approaches–helps shape purchasing strategies and underlies performance improvement. The report lays out key areas to pursue in examining Medicaid and CHIP as purchasers in the health care market; the importance of data on availability and use of services to evaluate access to care; and Medicaid beneficiaries’ access to care relative to that of people who have employer-sponsored insurance or are uninsured.